


The Samurai of Old

by Hawkbringer



Category: Samurai Jack (Cartoon), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Dialogue Heavy, Discussion of Genocide, Gen, Grief/Mourning, James T Kirk is a flirt, James T Kirk is not straight, Mind Meld, Poor Nurse Chapel, Possessive Behavior, Pre-Slash, Sick Bay (Star Trek), Spock Doesn't Like Sick Bay, Transporter Malfunction, Universal Translator, Vulcan Kisses, Vulcan Nerve Pinch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 12:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18250031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/Hawkbringer
Summary: Yet another transporter accident has beamed yet another strange humanoid entity on board the Enterprise. This time, it's a stoic, honorable samurai from Ancient Japan, adrift in space and time, and hurting from unfathomable loss. Spock understands this loss and engages the stranger in a meeting of the minds.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (written 2012) It struck me how similar Spock Prime in AOS and Samurai Jack are in terms of what they have experienced - genocide, time-warps, blaming themselves for said genocide... If there's anyone that needs a good mind-meld-based healing session, it's Jack. And transporter-accidents are definitely canon, so that wasn't much of a stretch. I did my best to keep Jack in character. Let me know if I succeeded!

"Uhh, Captain? We're needin' ya down here."

Jim sighs exaggeratedly and punches the reply button on the arm of his chair. "Oh, what is it, Scotty? We're havin' a _very_ exciting time _not_ getting shot at by Klingons up here!"

"Ach, don' ya tink ah know that, Captain? Someone, er something, has beamed aboard! 'E registers as human, but, what with all the exceptions we've met an' all..."

Jim glances sharply at his First Officer, then barks into the intercom. "On my way, Scotty! Spock, come with me!"

Without comment, the half-Vulcan slides easily out of his chair, leaving the science station in the unquestionably-capable hands of the 18-year-old navigator. The two most highly-ranking officers aboard the USS Enterprise stride in perfect tandem for the turbolift and the bridge heaves a relieved sigh a one.

Before the doors close, Jim remembers to call out, "Oh, Sulu? You have the conn!" Sulu shouts back an affirmative as the pneumatics engage and the lift shoots away.

"Now, Captain, really, is it required of me to accompany you on all of your meaningless visits across the ship? Several technicians in the Science Lab--"

"Spock," Jim cuts in, laying a gentle hand briefly on his almost-friend's arm, "you'd kill yourself and half the crew if I did something idiotic and you weren't there to see it. This way, if I need to be rushed to Sickbay, you'll know exactly why and you won't pester Bones to the point where he throws you out into the corridor to snap at passing yeomen and make them cry!" Jim delivered the last bit with somewhat forced jauntiness - several of the yeomen, in Jim's personal experience, did deserve a little shaming from the higher ranks now and then.

Spock bristled, tightening his shoulders in a way that must have hurt. "Vulcans do not snap, Captain. Neither do we pester others, to a degree that would interfere with their assigned functions aboard the ship." 

Jim gave a derisive snort at that. "Yeah, well, talk to Bones at some point. I'm sure he can tell you all about your 'interfering with his assigned functions'."

"I have no desire to do so," Spock informed his captain, "however, if you are giving an order to have such a conversation, I will, of course, comply." 

Jim grinned somewhat lopsidedly. "No. I know how that shit's gonna turn out, and believe me, I don't want you and Bones both blaming me for the fallout after your egos explode due to prolonged exposure to each other."

Spock quirked one eyebrow upward and Jim did a fistpump in his head. "The sheer amount of illogic in your statement renders any serious reply pointless and undignified. I believe the correct response to such a statement falls along the lines of, 'Who, me? Never.'" 

As the turbolift doors opened, Jim stumbled out, unable to breathe for laughing. 

After nearly falling twice on his way down the corridor, Spock very seriously considered offering his captain ambulatory and/or respiratory aid, but such an offer was rendered unnecessary as Scotty pedaled out of the transporter room towards them.

"Captain! Captain! Oh, and Mr. Spock, sir. Come quickly! I think the man's gone crazy! He's, he's got this /sword/--" 

Jim broke into an ungainly run, chasing Scotty back the way he came with Spock, as always, half a step behind.

The three of them skidded to a stop outside the room, watching dumbfounded as the doors opened onto a scene of impressive mechanical carnage. Scotty screamed something about his poor bairns. Jim hollered at the bleeding but still conscious transporter tech to get security down here on the double. 

Spock simply walked towards the intruder, clearly visible as a flurry of white robes and black hair and silver blade among the redshirts he was wrestling. Face masculine despite the impressive length of his hair, the stranger possessed impressive physical strength, Spock noted as he approached with haste. Nearly half that of a Vulcan. 

Thankfully, he seemed reluctant to use his impressive sword on any of the clearly-human transporter techs, but was also reluctant to drop the sword to engage in hand-to-hand combat with them. The five humans wrestling the stranger kicked at his sandal-clad feet and struggled to present his back to the rapidly-approaching Vulcan. 

Spock mounted the few steps up to their level and efficiently closed his fingers over the nerve cluster in the back of the strange human's neck. Over at the controls, Jim was canceling the order for security and swearing at McCoy over the ship-wide com. He cut off his tirade for a second to hiss and rub his own neck in sympathy. No way was that sort of experience ever gonna be easy for him to repeat.

" _Jim? Jim! What is it? I heard that! What's going on?!_ "

Done with his job, the Vulcan stalked over and batted Jim's hand away from the answering button, ignoring the half-annoyed, half-amused facial expression the childish action earned him. "Doctor, this is Spock. The intruder has been neutralized. I have rendered him unconscious. However, he is a most curious specimen." Jim glanced at him oddly. "You may wish to bring him to Sick Bay for examination before confining him to the brig. Several technicians have sustained non-serious epidermal injuries. I will have them report as well."

"At ease, ya stuck-up Vulcan. Well, clearly, you've got it under control up there, but I'm gonna want some answers when the bastard wakes up in..." McCoy left the sentence hanging, waiting to see if Jim was right about Spock's weirdly-precise time measurements.

"3.62 hours," Spock supplied promptly, and blinked once or twice at Jim's wide grin. "I assume the doctor requires complete information relevant to his patient's care." 

It wasn't quite a question, but Jim reassured him anyway, "No, no, you're right, he does. He just didn't believe me when I told him about your time-estimating-thingy that you do." 

Spock lifted an eyebrow in question. "Thingy, sir?" 

Jim didn't quite stifle his guffaw. "Now you're shittin' me. You know what that means." 

Spock did not dignify that with a reply.

Jim turned and nodded to the injured techs, dismissing them to Sick Bay. Then he spun back to Spock and clapped him too hard on the shoulder. "Well! Since we've got 3.61 hours still to wait, shall we go mind the store?"

"I was not aware that captaining a constitution-class starship was analogous to temporarily managing a planet-based vending establishment." 

"Oh, isn't it?" Jim asked rhetorically and flirtatiously, flouncing out of the wrecked and disarrayed transporter room. 

"More power to ya, Scotty," he called over his shoulder as the Chief Engineer, nearly hyperventilating, requested permission to start immediate repairs.

\-----

Exactly 3.50 hours after he had administered the nerve pinch, Spock found himself in Sick bay, one of his least favorite places on the ship, if Vulcans were to admit to having favorite rooms, which, of course they would not, for to do so would be illogical. 

Spock found himself glancing with unusual frequency at his captain's very animated, healthily-pink face, simply to reassure himself that the man was not unconscious or in need of immediate hyposprays to render him as such. 

Dr McCoy was stating something about a minor surgery he'd performed on the stranger while he was out, and Spock edged near enough to his captain to feel his meager body heat against his own, and tried to force himself to listen. 

"...just slipped a subcutaneous Universal Translator under the skin of his neck right there, see?" The doctor pointed out a slightly raised bump and the accompanying small scar, healed by the magic of his high-power dermal regenerator. "And he'll be thanking me for that, once he comes around. One of the techies told me he was raving in something that sounded like Japanese before Spock knocked him out." 

Jim guffawed briefly. "More like pinched him out!" Spock did not roll his eyes. He did glance briefly at the ceiling following Jim's statement, but that was due to an aging overhead fluorescent light that chose that inopportune moment to flicker distractingly.

"That seems consistent," Spock commented, gesturing to the bundle of the stranger's clothes on the nearest visitor's chair. "The style of his _ghi_ and the folk art forms evident on the handle of his katana indicate origins from Japan's Kamakura period, old Earth dates 1185 to 1333--" 

"How do you do that?" Jim broke in, slack-jawed. 

Spock raised both eyebrows very fractionally, and replied simply, "I was raised on Vulcan." 

Jim just snorted in apparent amazement and Spock ignored how the movement brought their elbows together briefly. He admitted to himself that the contact was not undesirable, especially given their history of physical contact in this place. Shivering quite imperceptibly, Spock put his vaguely-distressing memories aside and reminded the doctor of the patient's immanent return to consciousness. 

The Captain and his two best friends huddled around the head of the private sick bay bunk where the human was restrained to a degree that would rather encumber Spock himself. Several nurses hovered nearby, an assortment of hyposprays lying on the hovertray beneath their faintly trembling, nervous hands.

Spock's internal countdown wound into its final seconds and he spoke aloud. "Consciousness should resume in 6.5 seconds." Silently, everyone present counted down, tensed on their tiptoes. Spock observed that Jim actually reached surreptitiously for a phaser, then twisted his fist against his hip when he found he didn't have one. 

Exactly on the dot, the heavily-muscled male form on the bed heaved in a deep breath, very controlled, as if to center himself. The readings on the headboard panel jumped frighteningly, then settled to stable-conscious levels, and he snapped open his eyes. All assembled watched as pure, mortal fear flashed in his eyes and he wrenched at each restraint in turn, taking in his whole surroundings swiftly after he discovered that he could not move. 

"I... cannot move." 

"Right," McCoy jumped in, reassured by the even tone of the man's voice. He controlled his obvious panic well. "You were... rendered unconscious by Mr. Spock here."

The dark-haired man blinked and turned to look at the slightly alien man that stood beside him, pointed out by McCoy's vaguely-waving hand.

"Why have you restrained me? I cannot smell Aku here - you are not his servants?" 

Jim jumped in. "No, no, uh, we don't serve anyone called Aku." He glanced around the circle, finding only equally-non-plussed faces. "We're, ahem, we're on a starship. I am the captain." Recognition flickered in the stranger's eyes. 

"I know of ships. I have sailed in the past." A flicker of remorse and bitter grief at the words. "That is, in the far past." 

"You're not in your right time," Jim declared, wondering if he was right. 

The stranger sighed, schooling the pain away from his expression and refocusing on duty - a move Spock recognized quite acutely from his own past. "No. I am... from the past. I was thrown into the distant future by an all-powerful demon, named Aku. I am searching for him, to undo the evil that he has done, and save my people from utter destruction." 

Spock's heart lept in his throat and Jim glanced once at him, concerned by the sharp inhale he heard from his First.

The doctor cut in with his drawl over the poignant scene. "Well, I'd say you're not only in the wrong time, you're also in the wrong dimension! We don't have demons, no one named Aku or nothing." 

The eyes of the stranger narrowed. "I am in the wrong dimension? What trickery is this?" 

Jim cleared his throat. "It's no trick, sir, uh, dude. We've got these things called transporters, probably magic to you, that can scramble molecules... it's all very science-y and complicated," the stranger accepted the truncated explanation with a simple nod, "and this has actually happened to us before - someone comes in from another dimension - kind of sideways from this one. With enough information, we can probably get you back where you came from." 

Hope flared in the stranger's eyes, but McCoy was quick to stamp it out. "I don't think we can get you back to your past, darlin', but we can put you right back where and when you were when you beamed aboard the Enterprise." 

The stranger's eyes closed in sadness but he opened them shortly, and accepted with a nod. 

"To return to my future would be acceptable. I am coming to believe only the devil that sent me here can send me back."

"There's probably something you're meant to do in this future, you know," McCoy mused. "People don't get shot all over hell and creation without doing some good or bad along the way."

The stranger dismissed his musings, shifting and twisting to get more comfortable beneath the restraints. "I have only one mission - to return to my past. I have freed many peoples from the yoke of Aku's evil, but every morning I pray that I can undo all the good I have needed to do, with the ultimate penance - destroy the one responsible before he can do such harm at all."

"Penance?" McCoy frowned at him. "What did you do that you need penance for? You don't seem like a guy prone to evil to me - although Scotty may disagree at this point!" 

"I failed to destroy the threat of Aku's evil before he took over my world completely. I _know_ there is a way to return and finish what I did not manage to do before." McCoy and Spock nodded solemnly, and Jim saw the hurt in his First Officer's eyes, doubled by the knowledge that there was no returning for him, that this Spock was being punished for the failure of an alternate of himself, and that Older Spock would probably never stop mourning as long as he lived... 

Jim impulsively reached out and settled his palm around Spock's far shoulder, a move the Vulcan shrugged off without comment shortly after contact. 

Unhappily snubbed, Jim let his hand drop. As he did so, his knuckles accidentally brushed against the back of Spock's closer hand. Jim was shocked to the core when Spock suddenly turned his hand to clutch Jim's palm tightly. A quick glance to his face told Jim that Spock was tightly controlling his expression. Poker-faced.

Jim cataloged this. /He's okay with being touched as long as it's hidden./ 

As soon as he had this thought, Spock squeezed his hand briefly as if in the affirmative. On top of that, Jim caught a faint hint of /pleading-grateful/ feeling that wasn't his own. Then Spock's hand slackened as if to pull away.

Nearly panicking, Jim's fingers twitched nervously, and Spock settled them by sliding his fingers into the space between Jim's, studiously ignoring how unspeakably lewd such an act would be judged on Vulcan. The Vulcan deemed his discomfort rewarded by the grateful relief that washed through Jim and into Spock via their joined hands.

Having spent the last few moments of poignant silence in contemplation, the stranger suddenly spoke up. "One named Scotty thinks me evil? Why?"

Startled, McCoy replied offhand, "Oh, because you destroyed a whole bunch of his metal machines in the room you first showed up in. Do you remember that?"

Stranger nodded warily, explaining, "Machines are used as weapons of destruction on my world. I am bound by honor to never kill or harm organic life where I find it - I did not kill any of your crew, Captain, did I?"

Jim smiled at being so addressed and shook his head. "No, no, none dead this time. Some got a few scratches, but that's kind of unavoidable with you waving around a freakin' _katana_ in such a small space. Where'd you get that thing, anyway?" He gestured in the direction of the sword that lay across the robe-thing. /What had Spock called it? a jee?/

Stranger whipped his head around to certify the truth of this before relaxing nearly every muscle in his body. Clearly, an artifact of no small import, Spock mused. "I thank you all deeply for leaving my sword and my clothing by my side. I have been treated with less hospitality in many places throughout my travels. But I am not without manners myself. Please, let me prove that these restraints are not necessary. I fight only to liberate those oppressed by Aku's evil, and I do not destroy life, only his machine-servants.. robots? I have heard they are called robots." 

With a small smile, McCoy nodded curtly to the nurse at his side, and he went about undoing the straps. "Okay, mister, how bout you prove you're harmless by laying right there on the bed until we can get some answers out of you?" 

The stranger nodded as the nurse did his work. "I will answer your questions as well as I can." 

"I have been tortured for information in the past," he volunteered just a few seconds later once he was free. "I trust painful methods will not be used in this facility?" 

McCoy smiled. "No, just plain ol' questions. We aren't exactly the type of people to torture innocents, and your self-professed crime hasn't even had any ramifications in this universe. I'd like to think of this more as a trade." 

The stranger nodded his understanding and asked simply, "Your terms are information for my transportation home?" 

"Yep, pretty much," McCoy agreed. 

"Oh, and also your cooperation," Jim cut in, picking up on a possible loophole. "This'll all go much easier if we can trust you to do as we ask. Don't touch certain things, stay out of certain areas, that sort of thing."

The restraints removed, the stranger lay complacent and utterly naked except for his loincloth, flexing his fingers and feet to return circulation to his extremities. "It will be no hardship to obey commands from the captain of the vessel on which I am currently marooned."

"Good," Jim replied, mollified. Then he remembered, "Hey! You never did answer my question. Where'd your sword come from?"

The stranger blinked and looked briefly bewildered at the simplicity of the request. "It was forged for my father by the mountain monks, and possesses the ability to destroy the demon which I seek, a quality found in no other weapon, no matter how strong. I have wounded the demon on several occasions, but he has always escaped and recovered."

Jim nodded as he spoke. "Okay, so, magic sword, that's cool. What else does it do? Can it fly?"

Surprise showed on the stranger's face and he admitted, "Yes, it has on occassion flown, but that was only when it was possessed by a demon. Er, not Aku himself. There are uncountable numbers of smaller demons on my world."

"What are the people like there?" 

The stranger had to think for a minute about that one. "In my real time, in my past, the people are all like me and you - they all have my dark hair and skin color. I never saw, until my journey to the future, people with such varied colors of hair, skin, and eyes."

"Asian, Jim. We've determined he's from Japan," McCoy cut in in a low voice.

"Also, in the future, there were beings, not human, but still people, from worlds beyond the stars. Very shortly after arriving in the future, I met a society of talking dogs."

"Hah! Well, you'll be glad to know there are no talking dogs in this universe! That musta been quite a shock for you."

The stranger nodded. "It was not the least. There have been many since... I cannot recall every detail as clearly as I once could. I have wandered for several years and fought the demon over a dozen times."

Jim held up his hand. "Hold off on that demon for a minute. You said, in the future, in your universe, there were people, beings, from worlds beyond the stars. What other worlds have you visited?"

"I have never left the planet of my birth. I have heard the outworlders call it Earth." 

"Have you heard of the planet Vulcan?" Jim asked with a glance shot at Spock, who stiffened. 

"No," the Stranger said simply. "I have not dealt with outworlders very often. Mostly, humans, robots."

"But you know of space? Aliens? Space travel?"

"Yes," the stranger offered cautiously, unsure what this circular questioning would lead to.

"Well, good! That makes our job easier!" Jim came to attention and addressed the unnamed interloper. "Sir and/or Madame, I am Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the Starship Enterprise. The starship part means we're in space. But we're not all that far from Earth at the moment."

The stranger sat up, clasping one hand to his head as his hair brushed his shoulders, free from its usual restraint. He turned sinuously and shuffled through the clothes on the nearby chair, eventually extracting a hairpin from some hidden inner pocket of his robe. 

Jim couldn't help it. He stared. 

With the ease of long practice, the stranger pulled his hair up and wrestled it into a tight, prim topknot. 

"Oh, no, you don't!" McCoy growled, unbelievably relieved to have something to complain about again. It would really be inexcusable, especially with the hob-goblin three feet away, to grouch at a survivor of a planet-wide genocide without a really good reason. "You're getting a bath, mister, or you'll be stinkin' to high heaven! Now, which nurse do you want to have take care of ya? I'm sure they're busy fightin' each other fer the privilege." The stranger removed the offending hairpin, flustered and blushing very slightly. 

Jim elbowed Spock in glee, realizing with another visceral shock that their hands were still clasped, and Spock didn't seem apt to change that fact anytime soon.

The stranger's eyes passed somewhat shyly over the assembled female (and male) nurses, and he offered his hand to one - a brunette, Jim noted with satisfaction, watching Chapel's face fall. Poor woman just seems to have a kink for exotic, unreachable men. He squeezed Spock's hand in childish victory, inordinately pleased that _he_ could and _Chapel_ couldn't. Spock responded with his own brief tightening of fingers and Jim tried to keep the sparkle of lust from passing through Spock's hand as it blazed up his spine. 

As the stranger and his brunette nurse strode across the cold floor toward the bathrooms, McCoy looked down at the chart he'd been recording medical notes on and nearly poked his eye out with the PADD-stylus. "Hey, wait a second!" 

Both of the receding figures turned around and McCoy called toward the stranger, "I just realized, I never got your name!" 

The stranger smiled, slightly and sadly, and his voice carried through the room, spoken from the diaphragm like a commander of forces in the age of land combat. "They call me Jack. Samurai Jack," was all he said.

McCoy sputtered out an affirmative-slash-dismissal and simply entered it into the chart. "Name: Samurai, Jack."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very Jack-and-Spock heavy, and the majority of it is their mind-meld.

Scotty did indeed give the unfortunate samurai the fifth degree when the man had been declared fit to release from sick bay. The samurai proceeded to spend the majority of his time as close to the outer hull as possible, unnerved by his tendency to forget he wasn't simply in a large building on his Earth, unpleasantly reminded of it whenever red lights and blaring sirens would start up, accompanied by the captain's voice calling for 'battle stations'. 

To avoid the vertigo, Samurai Jack spent as much time as he could on the observation decks, studying star charts and listening to records of the crew's adventures on very foreign worlds. It was when he heard the story of the Romulan Nero that he felt his first twinge of sympathy for these strange, mostly-happy humans. They were not oppressed. They were free! Flying outside the earth in a ship large enough to hold comfortably every member of his old village. Surrounded by magic machines that moved impossibly heavy things and spit out food given just a verbal command, pain and suffering seemed to be things of the past. His past. And his future, if he could get back to it. Jack felt so impossibly removed from them. 

Empathetic as he was, he had gotten no sense of collective grief from the crewmembers, grieving though they should have been, once he heard of the hundreds lost aboard several more ships, of the billions lost as a planet was destroyed. Watching the tapes, hearing the shrill, panicked voices of so long ago, Jack allowed himself to grieve for their distress. This, pain and loss, was so much more familiar. 

When that tape ended and the quiet, smooth-lined silence settled in around him again, Jack contemplated his own future life. Once his mission was complete, he too would never know lack again.

It would be a very strange life, indeed - peace was his goal, and he would kill the demon if it took the entire rest of his allotted time. But if he succeeded, and had such a life ahead of him... Jack did not allow himself to think of it. His duty to the billions suffering, enslaved, even dead, came first. So much responsibility was a safe thing to bury himself in, to forget the future and all the uncertainties it held.

"A soothing thing, duty," remarked the cool voice of the non-human Jack had come to know as Spock. The alien approached from the unlocked door on his left, looking not at the room's occupant, but at the dazzling view of the stars. "It prevents us from considering what we might wish to do in its absence."

Jack turned his gaze back to the window, impossibly thick and clearer than still water. Without permission, the alien approached, and Jack turned his head to inquire sharply, "Why have you come here?"

"I have completed my duty shift and paperwork for the day. I am also the second-highest ranking officer aboard this ship. It is my right to go where I wish."

Jack understood the implicit reminder of his subordinate status, and ducked his head in deference, but his eyes narrowed all the same.

"However, I have not come here simply to exercise the privileges of my rank. I wished to converse with you, if that prospect is amenable."

His back still facing the alien, Jack nodded once, and Spock approached.

"What did you wish to speak of?" the stranger asked without much feeling. He remembered his fervent vow to inform and cooperate with the crew of the Enterprise. He would keep that promise, despite the unease he felt in the presence of the non-human.

"Shortly after your awakening, you spoke at some length about your mission. To destroy a demon from your past, I gather?"

"That is correct, but in my case, the demon is literal." He suddenly looked up to find the Vulcan at his other side and watching him very complacently. "Were you on this ship when it battled the one called Nero?"

"Yes," Spock answered smoothly, though if he spoke the truth, it must have cost him some effort. "I, in fact, went aboard his ship and sabotaged it in an effort to protect the Enterprise and destroy him."

"Did you succeed?"

"I did, in the end. My captain, the one you know as James Kirk, offered the man mercy, assistance, as he approached his utter destruction. I thought my captain mentally unstable at that time, and I questioned him about the offer, immediately after he made it, on the bridge, with the Romulan still on visual on the screen. I may have acted rather hastily in that instance," Spock admitted, "but Kirk's answer was illuminating. Nero represented an entire planet, an entire race of people, and Kirk feared if we destroyed him, that that race would turn against us. The choice was rendered purely academic, because the warlord took that moment to inform us that he would, and I quote, "rather suffer the end of Romulus a thousand times than accept assistance" from the likes of us. And we destroyed him. Rather violently, I admit. But it was the death he wished. When you face your demon, I suggest you give him the same choice. Those so committed to their pride that they would die to protect it can be counted on to choose their own annihilation."

Jack was shaking his head, his forehead dropped down into his hands. "How is it that you feel no pain? You are one of the Vulcans?"

"I am. Technically, a member of an endangered species."

"Your home was destroyed by that madman, that pure, insane evil. How could you offer him clemency?"

"In that moment, I could not. It was my captain who offered, and he had lost his father, on the day of his birth, to the whims of the same pure insanity. I... lost my mother that day. The day my planet imploded. The day I lost my race."

The pair of tormented wanderers were silent for a time, contemplating their own personal sense of loss, when the Vulcan again broke the silence. "Vulcans are a telepathic species. With some effort, or physical contact, we can read thoughts. From a very early age, we are taught to refrain from contact with others, to not pry into the minds of the unshielded, and my controls are taxed quite often aboard this ship. Telepathy is not an ability that humans naturally possess, and I am not certain if it could be taught. Among Vulcans, telepathic communication is far more nuanced and common than the use of simple words. As such, I often find myself at a linguistic disadvantage to my human companions. From brief observation, I believe you have experienced the same."

The samurai simply nodded. "I have experienced this disadvantage wherever I have traveled in the future of Aku. Even in the land I once lived on, there are none left who speak as I do."

And the Vulcan offered simply, "I understand."

Feeling a sort of terrible debt to this strange alien, Jack turned to him. "You came to converse with me about your experience with loss? Why am I of such interest to you? Surely all of the many humans on this ship have experienced similar loss."

Spock shook his head. "No. They have not. Only my captain knows the grief of losing one's parents and being helpless, being able only to watch. He lost his brother the same way, several months ago, on the planet Deneva. He died in my captain's arms." 

Jack bowed his head. "Then why not speak with him, the one with whom you have so much in common?"

"Because you will be gone soon. I have spoken with Chief Engineer Scott, and a simulation of the transportation conditions can be executed approximately 10.5 hours from now." Spock's tone shifted noticeably toward the congenial, and he continued, "It is ship's night. I expect a peaceful place to rest will be rare for you in the coming months. Should you wish to accept this small gift, I can have guest quarters prepared for you."

Jack bowed his head briefly in acknowledgement. "Thank you. I would indeed like to rest. But I find I am not tired at the moment. The sky..."

"I know. It is enchanting." The softness on the Vulcan's face, reminiscent of a smile, lifted Jack's spirits.

"And so constant! I was flung several thousand Earth years into the future from my past, and yet, in the dark places still left on my planet, the stars remain almost exactly the same."

"That is part of their allure, yes. I grant that you may never again see them at this velocity and position in all your life," Jack looked at him, eyes still bright with the wonder inspired only by the stars. "However, I wish to ask you, before you return to your stargazing, if you would consider granting me an audience."

Jack looked at him, honestly puzzled. "Would this not be considered an audience?" 

Spock shook his head. "You speak of a conversation conducted entirely in words. I wish to ask for something far more intimate. An audience of the mind. I can use my telepathy to establish a direct link between our minds. It is a chance for you to see my thoughts, in their purest form. It is much that I ask for, and much that I offer. Please consider it." Spock did not move his hand, nor his body, and simply stood beside the stranger, neither moving nor retreating.

"I have heard your offer, and I ask for time to consider it."

"I shall give you as long as you wish."

Time stretched in the silence, Spock studiously allowing the conflicting thoughts of the unshielded human to flow past his psyche like water beneath a bridge, refusing to pen up any to examine. Eventually, the white-robed samurai stirred.

"I have considered your offer, and I accept. I ask in return for your promise to end it when I ask, and to use this mental ability of yours as a tool simply for communication, not for violence."

"I agree to your terms, as they are mine as well. You will have the ability to look into me in this communion, and I apologize, but there are certain secrets I do not wish unearthed by one who will so fleetingly be present."

Somewhat warily, Jack nodded. "If you can communicate to me to stop, I shall do so."

"Agreed." Spock stepped forward, and sat on the floor directly in front of the samurai, knees not quite touching. "I shall have to touch your face with my hand to initiate the meld. Is this acceptable?"

Jack considered briefly. "Yes. I trust your word to do no harm."

"I shall do no harm," Spock reassured him, and the samurai nodded, watching raptly as a long-fingered hand rose and settled against his face, the fingers searching out specific places to rest - beside his nose, beside his lips, and on his temple. Then the alien spoke words that tasted of ritual to Jack's mind, the very old words, older even than Jack himself - "My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your...."

/....thoughts./

/This is the communion?/

/Yes. It is called a meld. We speak in thoughts here. Show me your pain, and let me heal it./

Jack doubts the non-human's ability to 'heal it,' but acquiesces anyway.

There is only darkness, only red, only panic, loss, pain, and yes, these are things Spock has seen before, a loss felt roughly on this scale before.

/An entire (world/culture/society/parents) lost/

/Yes. I feel. Feel mine./

And Spock turns over the rock they have called his heart, and pure fear, blinding pain, shrill horror and death are exposed. Jack feels the very vague presence of himself as he watches this display, and it really is too close, too intimate, a trusting exposure to which he has no right. With his incorporeal self, Jack reaches out, presses cool hands against the ragged edges of the hole hidden by the stoic-hard but fractured rock, and feels the pus of infection burble up against his mental fingers. 

The pain is great, but Jack rides it out, cleaning the sluggishly-bleeding edges solely with his attention to them. /Any wound ignored will fester,/ Jack chides with the voice of his mother cleaning scraped knees eons ago. Soothed, inflammation calming, the edges knit together, but the guts still exposed, seethe, writing with what looks like shame and inadequacy and hatred-towards-self for overlooking this; of course, the solution would simply be to look it in the face and clean it all away. Jack calms the tightening shame with his hands and his care and his thoughts, chiding softly, /Not your fault. How can it be your fault? Blame he-who-loosed-the-arrow, the one that killed that which lived here once./ 

/Useless, to blame he-who-loosed-the-arrow. He is dead, entombed in a singularity that collapsed in on itself and left our universe. Cannot find him. Cannot kill him a second time. Dead already. Price repaid. This pain is my due./

/You do not deserve it. You are so strong./

/As are you. There is more sorrow in you, and it has not faded with time. How do you live, so sorrowing? So grieving?/

/My duty lies undone. I will feel when the murderer is dead./

/A warning, then - you will feel strongly. I know the answer to this pain./

/I ask that you tell me./

/The humans, you humans, are correct. A burden shared is a burden halved. You must commune somehow, once your duty is done. This, the meld is unnatural to humans; do you not respond more to touch? Togetherness will anchor and retrieve what grief has sent out to sea./ Spock wraps the healed edges of his wound in preserving-film, and replaces the mask-rock. He sends waves of gratitude for the healing accomplished here.

/My duty lies undone. I cannot rest to commune/heal now./

Accompanied by soft amusement, Spock asks, /You are not communing now?/

Conceding, Jack specifies, /In the way of touch you mentioned before./

/Ah, yes. I am not able to soothe this need./

/It matters little. My time is short, if you spoke truthfully./

/I did. But time is subjective in a meld. I will begin the fading-up steps, if you wish./

/My burden is lightened by that which I have seen in you. This commiseration has been....beneficial. It would not be logical to remain once the aim has been accomplished./

/Spoken like a true student of (Surak/logic)/ Spock smiled within the meld and Jack became aware of a feeling of falling upwards, as his first so easy, so high leap of jump-good, a floating freedom. Spock took special note of this analogy and used the imagery of leaps several hundred yards up and away as impetus to launch the pair of them closer to the physical world, one leap at a time, up out of a valley, to the ocean, up to the clouds, brushing past Spock's own remembered image of Statos, and up again beyond them, the stars of the blackness rushing up to meet them ---

And they were apart, breathing deeply, slowly, instinctively, to calm themselves. Spock dropped his hand slowly, and Jack closed his eyes as the long fingers drew reluctantly away and caught briefly on his slack, open lips. Once separate beings on the physical plane as well, Jack opened his eyes to the sight of the Vulcan doing so as well. 

There could be no words for the closeness the traveler and the alien had shared, so the samurai bowed his head in a gesture of respect, and with surprise found that the alien had met him halfway. They sat, each slumped forward with his forehead against the other's, for several seconds in the silence. Then Spock leaned back and stood smoothly.  
Jack remained in his meditative pose, looking at the starry sky but not really seeing it, barely roused by the sound of the silent Vulcan's voice at the door. "I shall send someone in two hours to escort you to your quarters."

"Yes. Okay," Jack replied simply, using the slang for 'affirmative' he'd picked up from his universe's future.

"Okay," Spock replied, the silly word granted solemnity on the Vulcan's lips, and the door swished closed behind him. 

Jack had actually fallen asleep by the time an ensign in a yellow shirt tapped on the door and called his name. He followed without speaking, and merely nodded in consent when the young man opened a door to a small room containing a bed. Once again alone in the relative silence of the starship, the samurai set aside his clothing and his sword and bundled himself up in the multitude of covers, trusting the captain and his crew to wake him when the time was right, and sent himself off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, I had planned for a third chapter in which Jack is returned to his future without incident, then Spock has a heart-to-heart with Kirk ending in sexy times. That didn't get written, but hey, you're free to imagine it, or write it, for yourself!
> 
> Ask me stuff on Tumblr: hawkbringerandstubby.tumblr.com


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